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Israel Claims ‘Successful Hit’ in Southern Lebanon

JERUSALEM — Israel responded overnight to a rocket attack on Thursday from southern Lebanon, bombing what military officials described as a “terrorist site” between Beirut and Sidon.

Capt. Eytan Buchman, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, said Friday morning that the Israeli Air Force had made “a successful hit” on a target in Naameh, after four rockets were fired into the country from Lebanon for the first time in nearly two years. The rocket fire Thursday set off sirens in Western Galilee and raised tensions in the region against the background of the conflict in Syria.

A militant group called the Brigades of Abdullah Azzam, an offshoot of Al Qaeda in Iraq, claimed responsibility for the attack, according to Reuters.

Ramez Mustafa, a Lebanon-based official with a different group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said the airstrike occurred at 4 a.m. and caused no casualties. He said the warplanes struck the coastal town of Naameh, 19 miles south of Beirut, where the Popular Front operates. The Lebanese Army said in a statement that an Israeli fighter jet fired one missile from the direction of the sea, hitting a compound filled with tunnels used by the militant group.

“The state of Israel is holding the Lebanese government accountable for what is going on in its territory and will not sit by with every firing or provocation,” Moshe Yaalon, the Israeli defense minister, said Friday. “We will not let anyone disrupt our citizens’ lives.”

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The Israeli military said Thursday that its Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted one of the rockets between the Israeli coastal towns of Acre and Nahariya. Two fell between buildings in Israeli villages, damaging property but causing no injuries. Another appeared to have fallen in an open area.

Captain Buchman said Israel suspected that the rockets had been launched from the village of Qlayleh near Tyre in southern Lebanon by what he described as “global jihadist elements.”

“We see this as an unprovoked attack on the Israeli home front,” Captain Buchman said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised statement that Israel was “acting responsibly” in the realms of defense and prevention and that Israel’s policy was clear. “Anyone who hurts us, anyone who tries to hurt us should know that we will hurt them,” he said.

The Lebanese Army said in a statement that an “unknown group” fired Katyusha rockets from an area south of Tyre. An army unit searched the area and found four wooden launching pads, the statement said, adding that the army was investigating to find the perpetrators.

Rockets fired from southern Lebanon, apparently by a small group, last struck northern Israel in November 2011. The fact that Israel said it suspected jihadist elements this time suggested that the latest rocket fire was also an isolated event.